The number of journalists jailed worldwide for their work has gone up for the second consecutive year and one in three is an Internet blogger, online editor or Web-based reporter, according to a new analysis by the Committee to Protect Journalists.
New York-based CPJ's annual worldwide census found 134 journalists imprisoned as of December 1, a rise of nine from the 2005 tally. China, Cuba, Eritrea and Ethiopia are the top four jailers among the 24 nations that imprison journalists. Other nations included Bangladesh, Myanmar, the Maldives and Sri Lanka.
Print reporters, editors, and photographers continue to make up the largest professional category, with 67 cases in 2006, but Internet journalists are a growing segment of the census and now constitute the second largest category, with 49 cases, the analysis released on Thursday said.
The number of imprisoned journalists whose work appeared primarily on the Web, via e-mail, or in another electronic form has increased each year since CPJ recorded the first jailed Internet writer in its 1997 census.
The 2006 figure is the highest number of Internet journalists CPJ has ever tallied in its annual survey.
"We are at a crucial juncture in the fight for press freedom because authoritarian states have made the Internet a major front in their effort to control information," CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon said, adding: "China is challenging the notion that the Internet is impossible to control or censor, and if it succeeds there will be far-ranging
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